Station Eleven Book review

 Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

2014

Sci-fi, apocalypse, literary fiction

It’s been a while since I’ve read a book as profound as Station Eleven, a book so unique it’s hard to put the plot into words. This book has cults, kidnappings, survival, and amazing world-building.

The story is set decades before, at the cusp of, in the middle of, and two decades after a global pandemic kills 99% of the world’s population. Station Eleven is non-linear in the sense all four time periods are woven together to explore the settings and characters. While the book does not exactly have a plot, the exploration of our world and the post-apocalyptic world is insightful and learning how the half-a-dozen or so characters are connected made Station Eleven a page turner.

In terms of characters, Station Eleven truly is a book that has it all. In the past world set years before the pandemic, you have Arthur Leander, a movie star from a small island in British Columbia who connects all the stories together. Jeevan, from Toronto, offers the only insight into what happened in the 30 days after the initial outbreak. In the apocalyptic world, Kirsten Raymonde and The Travelling Symphony travel the empty landscape, performing Shakespeare to the few communities that survived. I love how much Station Eleven has going on, and all the perspectives are presented with such equal weight. 

Station Eleven is about a pandemic, a topic that hits close to home in our current world. St. John Mandel portrays the different stages of pandemics incredibly well. I loved the emphasis on working together, society's reliance on technology, and the importance of art to name just some of the many things St. John Mandel is able to cover in the novel’s page span. In the same way I admire the realism in the novel, there is something terrifying in reading about the pandemic of the novel. What if the death rate had been higher? What if governments and social structures had broken down?

Rating 5/5: I had a lot of fun reading Station Eleven, I hope you do too!